1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for designing a manufacturing process, and particularly to a method for designing a manufacturing process of an electronic device and a method for providing a manufacturing process design of the same, using a technology development CAD system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A design of an electronic device, such as a semiconductor integrated circuit, has become finer and more multilayered in order to achieve high performance and high speed operation. The degree of integration of such an electronic device has also been increased dramatically. High-performance electronic devices are used in various kinds of products and have shorter product life cycles than ever before. Therefore, it is required to design such high-performance electronic devices which satisfy diverse needs, in a short period of time, and to develop a manufacturing technology that enables large item small scale production at low costs.
Normally, for designing and developing an electronic device, based on characteristics of an element, such as a transistor, manufactured in manufacturing facilities by way of trial process, model parameters of the element which represent operating characteristics are extracted. Thereafter, a circuit for the electronic device is designed using the model parameters. For developing a manufacturing process of such an electronic device designed as above, performance and operation of the electronic device manufactured in a trial production process are verified. Thus, by repeating the trial production process of the electronic device in manufacturing facilities, conditions for manufacturing are improved. In addition, when the manufacturing process developed as above is transferred to another manufacturing facilities or to a different factory, a trial production process is repeated to modify the manufacturing conditions.
Additionally, a method for designing and developing an electronic device is proposed. In the proposed method, design or defect analysis of an electronic device predicated on virtual trial production or the like, is efficiently implemented by using technology computer-aided design (TCAD). The TCAD simulates physical or chemical phenomena of a manufacturing process or an electronic device (Refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-109446.).
However, a manufacturing process of a high-performance and high-speed electronic device is complicated and requires a long period of time. Therefore, repeating trial production processes for modification of a manufacturing procedure does not reduce the development period of an electronic device. Moreover, a variation of a manufacturing condition in commercial production facilities is not taken into consideration for a trial production process of an electronic device. Thus, a characteristic distribution of trial products may deviate from an average of a characteristic distribution of commercial products. Alternatively, a characteristic distribution of trial products may be larger than a permissible limit of a characteristic variation of the commercial products. Furthermore, there are some manufacturing processes which are not or cannot be inspected in the trial production process. Hence, manufacture of the trial product within a management standard is not ensured in all manufacturing processes. Moreover, the method proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-109446 is merely a method for automatically selecting simulation parameters essential for designing an electronic device, so as to improve simulation convergence, and a method for designing a manufacturing process of an electronic device is not disclosed.